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Nature Dresses in Dramatic Colors for Spring
Many Northern California gardens are beginning to awaken in a riot of color from bulbs planted in the fall. Local gardeners will tell you that to achieve lots of color in a spring garden, you can’t beat blooming tulip, daffodil, hyacinth, allium, crocus, anemone, and ranunculus bulbs.
These Kaufmannia tulips make a bold statement wherever they are planted
Buried in the earth, the bulbs are growing and sprouting and colonizing throughout winter. Many bulbs naturalize and spread year over year. One of my favorites is the deep blue Siberian Squill (Scilla siberica). The plant comes from the family of asperagaceae and thrives in Zones 2-8.
Siberian squill adds a lot of color for a small grouping of bulbs
Bright green foliage appears first. Later, tight little buds open atop sturdy, straight stems. Each flower yields a bell-shaped bloom that is roughly one-half inch wide. It is only slightly fragrant. When established, three to five flowers form a stunning blue cluster on a six-inch stalk poking above sword-like foliage.
It’s best to plant these bulbs about six inches apart and three inches deep in early fall. Choose a spot in full sun or part shade. Siberian squill require medium amounts of water. For the greatest impact, do mass plantings under deciduous shrubs and trees or in circles or rows.
Masses of blooming daffodils provide a focus and cheery greeting in a bleak late winter or early spring garden
When planted near yellow daffodils, the rich blue color of the Siberian squill will really pop. These bulbs do not need to be lifted as they will naturalize and colonize over the years. And come spring each year, you will have dramatic color combinations sprouting all around your garden.
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If you enjoy reading about gardening or farming topics, keeping chickens and bees, caring for fruit trees and vegetable gardens, or living well, check out my Henny Penny Farmette series of mysteries from Kensington Publishing and my health and wellness books from Adams Media/Simon and Schuster. The mysteries contain end-of-chapter tips on beekeeping and related topics. The rituals and meditation books feature tips and strategies for living your best peaceful life now.
These mysteries are available online and in bookstores everywhere
More than 150 rituals for sound mind, strong body, and meaningful connections to the people around you
Anyone can find peace, clarity, and focus…all it takes is a moment
This Year, Grow A White Garden
Vita Sackville-West, prolific English author, poetess, and avid gardener described her now-famous white garden at Sissinghurst in Kent as a garden of gray, green, and white. She wrote a column about it in the Observer that was published January 22, 1950 and republished in 2009. See, https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/gardening-blog/2009/jan/22/gardens
Vita Sackville-West hoped her experiment would be successful. Still, she opined that a garden can look well enough on paper but can fail “after you tuck your plans into the soil.” You can only hope it will turn out well.
Bacopa’s small white flowers blooms from spring through fall
Indeed, her garden succeeded as she had hoped. It has garnered worldwide fame as the “white garden at Sissinghurst,” one of the most visited areas of the castle gardens. Her vision for it was quite simply a fairly large bed divided into halves by a paved walkway that ended with seating for visitors to sit facing the garden. Rising at their backs would be a really high hew hedge.
White blooming roses are beautiful under moonlight
She envisioned many fragrant and ravishing florals sticking up through gray-green foliage. Her chosen blooms for this white garden, best experienced beneath a full moon for its appearance and scent, included dozens of tall trumpets of white Regale lilies, peonies, and irises, in hues of white to the palest creamy yellow.
In creating her garden, Sackville-West was manifesting a hoped-for result. She considered her garden as an amusing exercise and encouraged others to experiment in their gardens as well, according to their own “taste” and “opportunities.”
If you’d like to create a white garden, search for plants in white-blooming varieties and choose some for their fragrance: cleome (attracts pollinators), dianthus, primrose, evening stock (a scented annual whose fragrance intensifies at twilight), lily, phlox, night-blooming jessamine (possesses an intoxicating scent), tuberose, geranium, and white rose.
For gray-green foliage under these plants, tuck in lambs ears, snow-in-summer, or artemisia (this genus has between 200 and 400 plants). Or, use the plants Sackville-West chose for edging–specifically, Dianthus Mrs. Sinkins and Stachys Lanata).
White geraniums are easy to grow
For a small space, why not create a circular bed. Plant a fragrant, white rose, perhaps Claire Austin, named for the English rose breeder David Austin’s daughter. In a circle around the rose, plant yarrow with silvery-gray foliage. In the next layer (furthest from the rose and shortest) use bacopa, alyssum, or other white edging plants to create the outermost circle around the yarrow. The trio of layers in constant bloom creates a lovely bed with the appearance of a fairy ring–dramatic under the moonlight.
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If you enjoy reading about gardening, keeping bees and chickens, and other rural topics and you like a good mystery, check out my Henny Penny Farmette series of cozies, including A BEELINE TO MURDER, THE MURDER OF A QUEEN BEE, and A HIVE OF HOMICIDES.
- All available online and in bookstores everywhere
A HIVE OF HOMICIDES
MURDER OF A QUEEN BEE
A BEELINE TO MURDER
Enrich your reading pleasure by putting on your muck boots and stepping into the world of Abigail Mackenzie and her coterie of friends in charming Las Flores, California where the local movie theater still serves up homemade pastries and locals gather at the only watering hole in town, the Black Witch.
Besides offering a cozy mystery to solve, these books are chocked full of
1. Delicious recipes
2. Farming and gardening tips
3. Facts and tips for keeping bees and chickens
4. Tidbits of farm wisdom
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My newest nonfiction books include:
More than 150 rituals for sound mind, strong body, and meaningful connections to the people around you
- Anyone can find peace, clarity, and focus…all it takes is a moment